


Poetics

by JayJ



Series: Golden Moments in the Stream of Life [11]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:17:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayJ/pseuds/JayJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark eyes, colorful lies, and the way he sighs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetics

Dark eyes, colorful lies, and the way he sighs.

She thinks of Gold in poetics; aged and wordy, and filled too deeply with quaint theories and subtle implies.

It's not easy to be close to him. He intentionally makes it a challenge for her. She can't really comprehend many of the whys.

But still, Emma tries.

**~~**0**~~**

"Your house is awfully pink."

Is the first thing out of her mouth as soon as Gold opens the front door; it's early that evening, and she's wearing an old dress, and so it seems like the thing to be said.

"Salmon, actually," he contends without a beat missed, "symbolic in nature, I suppose it is, as the color means to have found ones true vocation in life and of being thoroughly happy about that."

Emma nearly tells him that pink is pink any way you try to color it but instead considers his words and remembers how impishly giddy he'd looked bartering that favor out of her, "makes a sort of sense then, I guess."

His grins in a deceptive way and ushers her inside, "I also didn't pick it."

"Sure, but you know pink is still pink even if it is trying to be a smartass about it," she decides frankly as she steps in close; more attentive to him than the surrounding aesthetics, "the horrendous color scheme a credit to the former Mrs. Gold then?

"Not quite, dearie" he said with a dismissive yet loaded stare, "but that's neither here nor there."

She shakes her head and gives a tart smile, "really not one for straight answers, are you?"

"A habit," he walks past her. She follows along, "easy answers can too often lead to the wrong conclusions. And I much prefer specific outcomes."

"Well that's a shady outlook, and a mildly depressing approach to conversation."

"How so?" He stops, turns slightly, and seemed genuinely interested in her response.

She shrugs casually, "it's just a rigged game then. And where's the thrill in that?"

"From knowing and watching it all play out accordingly, of course," he tells her, but Emma finds the sureness of his answer to be put on, and perhaps, unintentionally hollow.

"That sounds too much like a deliberate kind of loneliness."

"And you understand what that means, don't you?" he states rather slowly; looks at her like a mess of lost little pieces, "being lonely, Miss Swan?"

"Emma," she throws at him instead; gives him her name freely because that's the only thing she can think to offer him, "just Emma."

It's a deep start.

**~~**0**~~**

Love has never been kind to her.

And Gold _was_ difficult in that sense.

Distant and invasive; contradictions weaved through her personal speculations. And as particular and strange sometimes as the way he likes to engage and spin around her name.

Sheriff Swan or _Miss_ Swan and then there's Emma, Emma, _Emma…_

It's dangerous; the ways he can say it, angle it, and use it against her. Her own name has become a refined weapon; one that already has her falling to her knees in too many ways.

Wrong, but then feels right too. It just depends on their moments; the things he wants to get from her, and always in the way his plays it. Like strings being pulled; she's forced to follow along.

And like any puppet being drawn; she can only believe it's by choice.

**~~**0**~~**

Emma's all alone once more.

Not such an uncommon occurrence for her so it doesn't really bother her at all. But she finds that she's still in his bed long after it's over, and he's left her there, and now she's not quite sure what to do with herself.

She wanted to stay.

So Emma considers leaving instead, and nearly does so in haste.

But Gold appears right then, as if summoned along by her sudden desperation, and promptly detains her from fleeing the scene.

"You stayed." He said mildly, while lewdly admiring the sight of her wrapped so timidly and awkwardly in one of his thinly layered satin sheets.

"I shouldn't have," she shakes her head firmly as she searches the room for her belongings; busies herself with collecting them as fast as she can. But Emma hears, and is overtly aware of, the distinct tap of his slow and heavy movements.

"I did not expect you to," she hears Gold say. He's closer now, "I'm pleasantly surprised."

"Are you?" She can't help but ask. Emma finds herself doing that often; being nosy around him and striving to figure out his true intentions. She's always determined to know these things from him.

Gold grins for her then; tries to distract her, and tugs playfully at the fabric wound so tightly around her.

"You've never stayed before, and now I can't make sense of you at all." He admits; tone light and almost in jest.

But she takes it too seriously, "is that a good thing?"

His lips lift up further and sharpen at her prying curiosity; which somehow only makes the smile Gold gives her look a little sadder, "Would you always stay, if I asked you to?"

Emma doesn't really have an answer for that.

**~~**0**~~**

She comes to notice certain things with time. Peculiar little details that are probably more important than they appeared to be at first.

Like that Gold tends to be softer and holds a calmness in the dark; he's different, and seemingly at peace with himself only within the cover and lull of a preset darkness. And Emma finds that she's reflected the brightest in eyes when he looks at her under the thrall of that particularly blackened gaze.

It's as if he sees her in way that makes her matter, and is marveling at what he's found there. But Emma feel like he's giving her more meaning and purpose than she's ever tried to have.

She's already grown accustomed to being simple.

Yet, for some reason, Emma really wants to know what Gold saw in her in those moments.

**~~**0**~~**

"I don't want you to hate me." He says unexpectedly one stormy night as Emma lies scattered against him; absently listening to the hurried and erratic tempo of his ravished heartbeat.

"Then don't give me reason to," she tells him, and only because she knows that she could do it if provoked; despise him completely. Gold seems to be aware of that little fact as well. Better than she would think, as his simple demand would suggest.

Why else would he feel the need to ask such a thing?

And then Gold traces his finger down Emma's spine; glides it along fluidly yet with a fine purpose. As if writing upon her flesh the only answer to a deep and dark secret, "I think you would understand, in time, if I did."

"But then it wouldn't matter," she said, "because I'd already hate you. And I'm stubborn to a fault."

"I know," he nods, his smirk resigned, "still, I thought to ask."

"It's a strange request."

**~~**0**~~**

Gold tries to make her feel dizzy and blindsided too often. And Emma has never been good with emotionality; receptive or reciprocation. The back and forth of it tends to elude her clumsily.

It's a sort of dance, is what it is, but she's long since become awkward with its steps; life has only ever taught her how to trip on her own feet and stumble.

She wonders how far Gold will watch her tumble down. Because Emma can't help but know that he won't try catching her when that time does come; not unless he needs to.

In the end, he'll let her fall.

**~~**0**~~**

It doesn't take that long.

Emma's still at the hospital, and only just slain a dragon, when her cell phone rings loudly from inside her jacket pocket. She hesitates for a moment then decides to simply answer, "You've given me that reason."

"It's for the best."

Gold voice is empty, but there's honesty in that, so she doesn't hang up right then, "is it now?"

"I never did love you." She nods her head, her grip on her phone tightens; it's an involuntary response. So she's especially grateful he can't see it.

"No, I suppose you didn't." she agrees accordingly, but still listens to his prolonged silence. Finally she adds, "Or maybe you're just a liar."

There's a soft hitch like he putting together his words; trying to make them the right ones, or at least as close as can be, "and yet, sometimes, there is redemption to be found in a well placed lie. Salvation, too"

Emma supposes she agrees with that, "well then, now I hate you indefinitely."

"I'm glad for that."

One more pointlessly given but she doesn't bother calling him out on it; there's just really no need to. Instead she asked, "Where are you?"

"Far and away from you," is his blank answer. And she seriously loathes his tendency for ambiguity. Emma tries probing Gold further and more sharply because of it.

"Haven't you already done enough? What more do you have planned?"

He sighs, "another reason, I'm afraid. "

"Gold..." she tries.

"But it was fun while it lasted, don't you think?"

"Just sto-" but it's too late. He's already hung up.

And let her go.

**~~**0**~~**

Things get far too complicated after that; with the fine lines being drawn, and written in great length.

The curse has lifted. And so sides have shifted.

And admittedly, the poetic form, with his polysemous style and confusing interpretations, never did make much sense to Emma. And it's startlingly clear to her now that he just never would.

Still, there's a sadness that comes in having it all be completely lost to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Another story done. Again, this is one that's been sitting in my desktop for a little while now that I honestly hadn't thought to finish at all until I came across it today. It was mostly done but I still managed to waste an entire day at work completing it. (My boss is probably gonna be really pissed at me tom...)
> 
> Well, I hope it's at least somewhat of a good story. I'm not too sure how I feel about the end product because think I could have maybe found more to do with it but whatever; it's a done as it's gonna get now. (Unless I revise it later...who knows what my wacky mind will inspire me to do next)
> 
> But anyways, thoughts and opinions are always so lovely, and I'd actually like to know if I went too OOC in this one (I struggle with getting my Emma to feel right.)
> 
> xoxox


End file.
